I completed writing a memoir/blog and completed it a few months ago. I used to to come out to my family and the internet accessible world, as bi. I will share the entry where I came out with you all. If you find it interesting I can provide the link to the whole series. Set up: I was a SUPER repressed and religious teenager from a huge family. We lived in the backwoods of the Appalachian mountains.
Part 1
Somewhere Over the Monochrome Rainbow
"I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan;You have been very pleasant to me;Your love to me was wonderful, Surpassing the love of women." 2 Samuel 1:26
When the bus pulled up to the curb to drop me off for the first day of my junior year, a vampire sat alone outside listening to a Walkman I knew she had to be a vampire because kids in my church had been talking about her.They said a strange family, with three teens, had moved to the nearby town of Dante. They all had pale skin, dark hair,only came out at night, and dressed Goth. Rumor had it that the family came from Europe and had to move when they were discovered drinking blood. When I overheard the whispers I admonished the girls to stop spreading ridiculous gossip. But the moment I saw this striking girl I knew she had to be part of this vampire family.
She had the palest skin I had ever seen in real life, it looked supernatural. Her dark hair covered most of her face and reached down past her waist. She was wearing a baggy black Mudvayne shirt, red parachute pants, and army boots. The ensemble made her stand out like sore thumb against the other kids who mostly wore preppy or redneck attire. I was completely enchanted by her, but much to shy to introduce myself. Could this be the friend I had been praying for all summer? It was too much of a coincidence for her not to be.
I went into the school and asked my friends if they had seen the new kid. "Yeah, she is a transfer student from Texas or something. She is in our grade." I couldn't hide my excitement, "Oh wow that is awesome. We have to make friends with her and get her saved! She looks really cool." It was really rare for St. Paul High school to get a transfer student from out of state. We had only had a handful in the three years I had attended. "How should we do that?" Tonya asked, excited about winning another soul to Jesus. "I'm not sure yet. I guess when we have our prayer group at the flag pole we can pray for opportunities to talk to her."
Our group prayers seemed to be answered when the girl was in my French class. I sat as close to her as I could and tried to gather clues. In various youth group sermons that focused on soul winning, I had learned to strike up conversations about things you observed about people. For instance, if a student had on a t shirt with a band you could say,"I have heard of XYZ band before! Have you ever heard {insert similar sounding christian band}?" Little ice breakers that could eventually help you ascertain what church they attend, if any, and bring up the chance to invite them to yours. But I had never heard of Mudvayne, and couldn't muster the courage to talk to her.
After the teacher taught us to count to ten in French she asked the mysterious girl to introduce herself to the class and tell them a little about herself. My ears perked up and I made a mental note of every word. "My name is Sheree Cathey. I just moved here from Duncan, Texas. My Mom wanted our family to be in a safer neighborhood." "We are glad to have you Sheree, do you speak any foreign languages?" " I took a couple years of Latin, placed fourth in the Texas Latin competition. I took a couple years of French already and went on a two week trip to France. But my credits wouldn't transfer over so they put me in French 1."
With every word she uttered I felt myself becoming more bewitched. She had to be brilliant to take French and Latin, not to mention placing in competitions! She had actually been out of the country. I didn't think I had ever met someone my age who had traveled overseas. Even her name was completely exotic. I was marveling and absentmindedly staring at the back of her head when I realized the teacher had called on me.
Ms. Wells had been reviewing our lesson for the day and had asked me to stand up and count to ten. My mind froze and I felt myself panicking. I stood up and with a dry mouth and felt everyone looking at me, waiting bored. Sheree had piercing eye's and I quickly stared at the ceiling tiles as I rattled the numbers off to avoid meeting them. I heard a few kids snickering at me but had no clue why.
"Jacqui are you bilingual?" "Um....no Ma'am." "Well you could have fooled me. You just counted to ten in pretty decent Spanish." I felt all the blood rush to my face and knew I was blushing.I had to act cool and laugh it off somehow. "I must have seen Sesame Street one to many times." To my relief everyone laughed, including Ms. Wells. "That's okay you can try again." I closed my eyes,tried to breath, and began counting with a ridiculous redneck accent. " Zero, Un, Deux..."
It took a week of me watching Sheree from afar, like a CIA operative, before I made my move. I noticed that she never sat in the cafeteria during lunch, but sat by herself outside.She hadn't made friends yet, which wasn't surprising in such a close knit small school. I told my prayer group, who had prayed for her salvation every morning, that they needed to scarf down their lunches. Then we would go outside and hang out near Sheree. "We need to seem as friendly as we can and see if we can get her involved in a conversation."
My plan worked like a charm. We parked ourselves just a few feet away from her and started joking around. I turned sideways to open up the circle and would look over and smile when someone told a particularly funny quip. Eventually, when it was clear she was paying attention,I introduced myself and everyone in my group. Sheree had a hacky sack and asked us if we wanted to join in on the game. Hacky sacks were alien toys, I had never seen one at our school. We spent the rest of lunch learning the rules and kicking the little bean bag around. We casually scheduled another game for the following day.
After hanging out with Sheree for a couple days I finally worked up the gumption to write her a letter. In it I invited her to come to our church sometime. I told her I knew it must be hard moving from a big city to such a backwards Podunk town. I asked her about her family and told her a little about myself. I was worried she would think I was really lame and ignore me. But to my surprise she wrote me back immediately and was really friendly. She said her Mom wanted to bring the family to church for Mother's day so they would check mine out.
Part 1
Somewhere Over the Monochrome Rainbow
"I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan;You have been very pleasant to me;Your love to me was wonderful, Surpassing the love of women." 2 Samuel 1:26
When the bus pulled up to the curb to drop me off for the first day of my junior year, a vampire sat alone outside listening to a Walkman I knew she had to be a vampire because kids in my church had been talking about her.They said a strange family, with three teens, had moved to the nearby town of Dante. They all had pale skin, dark hair,only came out at night, and dressed Goth. Rumor had it that the family came from Europe and had to move when they were discovered drinking blood. When I overheard the whispers I admonished the girls to stop spreading ridiculous gossip. But the moment I saw this striking girl I knew she had to be part of this vampire family.
She had the palest skin I had ever seen in real life, it looked supernatural. Her dark hair covered most of her face and reached down past her waist. She was wearing a baggy black Mudvayne shirt, red parachute pants, and army boots. The ensemble made her stand out like sore thumb against the other kids who mostly wore preppy or redneck attire. I was completely enchanted by her, but much to shy to introduce myself. Could this be the friend I had been praying for all summer? It was too much of a coincidence for her not to be.
I went into the school and asked my friends if they had seen the new kid. "Yeah, she is a transfer student from Texas or something. She is in our grade." I couldn't hide my excitement, "Oh wow that is awesome. We have to make friends with her and get her saved! She looks really cool." It was really rare for St. Paul High school to get a transfer student from out of state. We had only had a handful in the three years I had attended. "How should we do that?" Tonya asked, excited about winning another soul to Jesus. "I'm not sure yet. I guess when we have our prayer group at the flag pole we can pray for opportunities to talk to her."
Our group prayers seemed to be answered when the girl was in my French class. I sat as close to her as I could and tried to gather clues. In various youth group sermons that focused on soul winning, I had learned to strike up conversations about things you observed about people. For instance, if a student had on a t shirt with a band you could say,"I have heard of XYZ band before! Have you ever heard {insert similar sounding christian band}?" Little ice breakers that could eventually help you ascertain what church they attend, if any, and bring up the chance to invite them to yours. But I had never heard of Mudvayne, and couldn't muster the courage to talk to her.
After the teacher taught us to count to ten in French she asked the mysterious girl to introduce herself to the class and tell them a little about herself. My ears perked up and I made a mental note of every word. "My name is Sheree Cathey. I just moved here from Duncan, Texas. My Mom wanted our family to be in a safer neighborhood." "We are glad to have you Sheree, do you speak any foreign languages?" " I took a couple years of Latin, placed fourth in the Texas Latin competition. I took a couple years of French already and went on a two week trip to France. But my credits wouldn't transfer over so they put me in French 1."
With every word she uttered I felt myself becoming more bewitched. She had to be brilliant to take French and Latin, not to mention placing in competitions! She had actually been out of the country. I didn't think I had ever met someone my age who had traveled overseas. Even her name was completely exotic. I was marveling and absentmindedly staring at the back of her head when I realized the teacher had called on me.
Ms. Wells had been reviewing our lesson for the day and had asked me to stand up and count to ten. My mind froze and I felt myself panicking. I stood up and with a dry mouth and felt everyone looking at me, waiting bored. Sheree had piercing eye's and I quickly stared at the ceiling tiles as I rattled the numbers off to avoid meeting them. I heard a few kids snickering at me but had no clue why.
"Jacqui are you bilingual?" "Um....no Ma'am." "Well you could have fooled me. You just counted to ten in pretty decent Spanish." I felt all the blood rush to my face and knew I was blushing.I had to act cool and laugh it off somehow. "I must have seen Sesame Street one to many times." To my relief everyone laughed, including Ms. Wells. "That's okay you can try again." I closed my eyes,tried to breath, and began counting with a ridiculous redneck accent. " Zero, Un, Deux..."
It took a week of me watching Sheree from afar, like a CIA operative, before I made my move. I noticed that she never sat in the cafeteria during lunch, but sat by herself outside.She hadn't made friends yet, which wasn't surprising in such a close knit small school. I told my prayer group, who had prayed for her salvation every morning, that they needed to scarf down their lunches. Then we would go outside and hang out near Sheree. "We need to seem as friendly as we can and see if we can get her involved in a conversation."
My plan worked like a charm. We parked ourselves just a few feet away from her and started joking around. I turned sideways to open up the circle and would look over and smile when someone told a particularly funny quip. Eventually, when it was clear she was paying attention,I introduced myself and everyone in my group. Sheree had a hacky sack and asked us if we wanted to join in on the game. Hacky sacks were alien toys, I had never seen one at our school. We spent the rest of lunch learning the rules and kicking the little bean bag around. We casually scheduled another game for the following day.
After hanging out with Sheree for a couple days I finally worked up the gumption to write her a letter. In it I invited her to come to our church sometime. I told her I knew it must be hard moving from a big city to such a backwards Podunk town. I asked her about her family and told her a little about myself. I was worried she would think I was really lame and ignore me. But to my surprise she wrote me back immediately and was really friendly. She said her Mom wanted to bring the family to church for Mother's day so they would check mine out.